There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest is cowardice.

Mark Twain

You perceive I generalize with intrepidity from single instances. It is the tourist's custom.

Mark Twain

The face of the water, in time, became a wonderful book- a book that was a dead language to the uneducated passenger, but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished secrets as clearly as if it uttered them with a voice. And it was not a book to be read once and thrown aside, for it had a new story to tell every day

Mark Twain

The mania for giving the Government power to meddle with the private affairs of cities or citizens is likely to cause endless trouble, through the rivalry of schools and creeds that are anxious to obtain official recognition, and there is great danger that our people will lose our independence of thought and action which is the cause of much of our greatness, and sink into the helplessness of the Frenchman or German who expects his government to feed him when hungry, clothe him when naked, to prescribe when his child may be born and when he may die, and, in time, to regulate every act of humanity from the cradle to the tomb, including the manner in which he may seek future admission to paradise

Mark Twain

The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.

Mark Twain

It is best to read the weather forecast before praying for rain.

Mark Twain

In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.

Mark Twain

There are no standards of taste in wine, cigars, poetry, prose, etc. Each man's own taste is the standard, and a majority vote cannot decide for him or in any slightest degree affect the supremacy of his own standard

Mark Twain

The solution to our water problems is more rain.

Mark Twain

Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody.

Mark Twain

Indecency, vulgarity, obscenity- these are strictly confined to man; he invented them. Among the higher animals there is no trace of them.